


I Hope By the Morning

by andnowforyaya



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Depression, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, New York City, One Night Stands, Promiscuity, Suits crossover if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the bathroom came sounds of the guy brushing his teeth. Stiles rubbed the fifty dollar bill between his fingers and felt cheap. "Dude, I'm not taking your money."</p><p>The guy spat and turned the faucet on. "Take the money. You said you lived in Queens last night? Who the hell lives in Queens."</p><p>The fifty seemed gritty in his fingers, but he put it in the back pocket of his ridiculously tight jeans, anyway. That was, like, a five-hour shift at the coffee shop where he worked, Common Grounds, with tips. "And don't call me 'dude,'" the guy continued, turning off the faucet. "I'm not your college bro. It's Derek."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles woke slowly, leisurely, the kind of coming back to consciousness that only ever happened after a perfect night's sleep, or an alcohol-induced stupor, the previous day pleasantly fuzzy and distant, with nothing but sunshine to look forward to. Well, there was definitely sunshine. Slanted right into his eyes. It made the skin on his face hot, flashes of orange flaring up beyond his eyelids. What kind of person slept with the blinds open?

Stiles groaned, rolled over onto his other side and burrowed deeper in the satiny duvet that was pulled up to his chin. The mattress molded around his body like a cocoon, and soon enough he was dropping off back to sleep.

Then someone was running the shower, and Stiles groaned again, because that signaled that it was officially time for him to find the clothes that he had strewn about around the bedroom before falling into bed with whomever was in the shower. He had to get dressed. Preferably slip out before Guy in Shower emerged fresh and clean, maybe with a towel slung low over his hips, water rolling down his sides. He probably had scruff. Stiles always went for guys with scruff. Maybe Guy would be up for a round of sleepy morning sex, and for making him pancakes, or even --

No. His shift at the coffee shop was later today, and he hated showing up in the same clothes with bed hair and glasses because his contacts had molded strangely to his eyeballs overnight. He had to get up. But he didn't want to.

The bed was, like, _really_ , comfortable. And everything smelled warmly of cedar and pine and sex.

A door opened and then everything smelled even stronger, with a hint of lavender in the mix. "You have any plans to leave?" came a gruff, growling voice that originated in the same area the smells were coming from. Stiles' snapped his eyes open and was greeted immediately by a sight even better than he had imagined.

There was, indeed, a man standing before a billowing cloud of steam in front of the bathroom door, naked save for a towel wrapped around his hips, a second towel slung around his shoulders as he dried off his nearly-black hair. Oh, he had scruff. And water trickling teasingly down his muscles. And really nice hazel eyes.

"Wow," Stiles said, slightly breathless. Silently he congratulated himself for a job well done last night. Even without beer goggles, this guy was _clearly_ a direct descendant of Adonis. "Hello, abs," he said next, aware that he was staring from his horizontal position on the bed. To make things less awkward, he propped himself up onto his elbow. Well, it made things less awkward for Stiles, anyway.

Guy rolled his eyes. His really nice hazel eyes. Stiles gulped. The sheets were silky over his legs. He looked around the bedroom and was greeted by tasteful, minimalist style in whites and greys and blacks, and an impressive lack of clutter.

"I have to get to work," Guy said in that rough voice. Stiles can only imagine how that sounded to him last night. Hell, it was giving him the shivers _now_ , at ass o'clock in the morning. He gave Stiles a pointed look. "And I'd like for you to leave before then."

Stiles blinked. He looked around the room again. The only personal touch was a picture of the guy with a pretty young woman who had the same impressive cheekbones and nearly-black hair on some beach. He picked up the frame but put it down immediately again when Guy growled. "Okay, jeez, god. Let me just --"

He looked around again, this time for his clothes, and frowned when he saw them in a neatly folded pile on the black dresser. "Wow, do this often?" he asked, unable to help himself.

"Do you?" the guy shot back. Which, fair point.

Stiles shrugged. The guy turned around - and holy hell that tattoo on his upper back was _delectable_ \- and went back into the bathroom, leaving just a sliver between the door and the frame. His voice resonated in the smaller room when he said, "There's some money on the dresser, too. Cab fare."

Stiles blanched. Slowly, he made his way over to the dresser, completely comfortable with his own nakedness, and for some reason he still had his left sock on, and began to pull on his clothes from last night. Skinny jeans that Lydia made him shimmy into. A black shirt that she insisted showed off his collarbones. From the bathroom came sounds of the guy brushing his teeth. Stiles rubbed the fifty dollar bill between his fingers and felt cheap. "Dude, I'm not taking your money."

The guy spat and turned the faucet on. "Take the money. You said you lived in Queens last night? Who the hell lives in Queens."

The fifty seemed gritty in his fingers, but he put it in the back pocket of his ridiculously tight jeans, anyway. That was, like, a five-hour shift at the coffee shop where he worked, Common Grounds, with tips. "And don't call me 'dude,'" the guy continued, turning off the faucet. "I'm not your college bro. It's Derek."

"Oh," Stiles said, turning to see Derek emerge from the bathroom again, this time in black briefs and a grey v-neck shirt. It seemed his minimalist style extended to his fashion choices. He probably owned a leather jacket. In fact, Stiles was pretty certain he owned a leather jacket, this being one of the images that was slowly returning to him from last night. Derek in something tight and sleek and warm, with zippers that had been a struggle. "I'm--"

"Stiles," Derek finished for him, shooting him another look that clearly said _that is a fake name or alias but I give absolutely zero fucks_. "Yeah, I know. So is that enough? The cab fare?"

The fifty in his back pocket was burning a hole through the material of his jeans and branding his skin, but money was money was money, and if this Derek guy wanted to pay for his cab fare all the way to Queens, well no one would have to tell him that Stiles was going to just take the fifty and jump on the trains, instead. "Yeah," Stiles squeaked, because he had always been shit at lying. "So, my jacket?"

"Kitchen," Derek said, waving a hand and disappearing into another room, which Stiles quickly realized was a walk-in closet. Who the fuck had a walk-in closet in New York City? Stiles tried not to gape. But he had also clearly been dismissed.

"Okay, well," Stiles began, hedging. Usually he was the one making a beeline for the door the next morning before he could actually _interact_ with his latest conquest, because Stiles was the kind of guy who just didn't know when to stop talking, felt uncomfortable at actually ending conversations, and that made for some pretty awkward morning-afters and I-don't-really-feel-that-way let-downs. "I guess I'll see you."

"Probably not," Derek said from inside the closet.

"Yeah," Stiles agreed. "Probably not."

His jacket was draped over one of the chairs in the breakfast nook in the kitchen, as was his scarf and knit hat. He wrapped himself up, found his other sock by the couch in the living room, and slipped on his boots by the front door. He walked out of Derek's apartment building and found himself a couple of blocks West of Union Square, and suddenly he didn't want to go all the way back out to Queens just for a change of clothes, only to return later for his shift that afternoon. He pulled out his phone and called Scott, sighing when his friend picked up.

"Stiles!" Scott answered enthusiastically. "Man, how _wrecked_ were we last night? Where'd you go off to? Lydia slept over with Allison because she didn't want to go back to Queens alone? So, like, were you with someone?"

"Yes?" Stiles replied. Scott howled. He had no idea how his friend was so boisterous so early in the morning. "So can I come over and, like, shower and change and stuff?"

"Yeah, dude, of course. Come over. Lydia's going to want to hear all about it."

"You mean you don't want to be regaled by the awesome adventure that was mine last night?" Stiles smirked into the phone, but he was tired. He stifled a yawn. The lack of sleep was catching up to him.

"Well, Lydia will want to know the _details_ ," Scott amended. "And you know I'd just...rather not. I'm a broad-strokes kinda guy."

"Yeah, yeah." Stiles waved it off, even though Scott couldn't see. Scott was like a brother to him, and he supposed that he wouldn't tell a real-life biological brother the details of all his sexual exploits, either. "Anyway, I'll be there soon."

"Cool." Scott hung up the phone. Stiles stuffed his own into the pocket of his jacket and walked the few blocks to Scott and Allison's studio they had gotten together in the Lower East Side. He tried to remember the events of last night as he walked, sure that Lydia would pump him for information. He had to get his story straight.

.

Scott let him wear one of his very few button-ups to go to work later, and he discovered his red zip-up hoodie that he thought he had lost to the laundromat ages ago on a hanger in Allison and Scott's closet, so he put that on over the shirt, too. He ran his fingers through his drying hair and tried to figure out which question out of the barrage he wanted to answer first from Lydia, who was comfortably seated on the lone couch that marked the 'living room' of the tiny studio and painting her nails fire-engine red. Three steps to the left, Allison and Scott were crammed in their equally-tiny-but-proportional kitchen, making an omelet that was quickly turning into scramble.

"So when did you leave? Who's the guy? Was he cute? Was he cut? How was his apartment? Did you leave him your number?" She gasped. "Did he leave you _his_ number? Is he hung-up? Like does he realize he's probably just another notch in your belt?"

"Okay." Stiles interrupted her litany of questions and took her left hand from her, and the brush for the nail polish. Lydia always had a hard time with her left hand, and he had done this for her often enough to stop being surprised by his own steady fingers. "First of all, why do you just assume that it was guy?"

Lydia scoffed. "Please, Stiles. The last girl you slept with was like over a year ago and I distinctly remember that ending in tears. _Your tears._ "

Stiles jabbed the brush back into the container viciously, coating it with red polish. So Lydia had a point. It was a point that he didn't like to be reminded of. Sometimes they referred to it as The Vagina Scare of 2012. "Fine, so it was a guy. He was, I don't know, older? Lives around Union Square. Probably rich. Scruffy and dark-haired and, wow, _muscles_. Like seriously I wouldn't be surprised if he had one of those personal pull-up bars installed in one of his doors. I re-saw his abs this morning. I wanted to _lick_ them. I bet they would have tasted like chocolate."

Lydia smiled. She really had a beautiful smile. Stiles would probably still be in love with her if she weren't terrifying. "And?"

"And..." Stiles trailed off, finishing up Lydia's smallest finger. This was the only part that Lydia really wanted to know - would Stiles see them again? "And he was gorgeous, okay? But like he totally kicked me out before I got the chance to start my own walk of shame. I mean, I guess I still walked the walk of shame, but definitely not on my own terms."

"So you'll probably never see him again." Lydia's smile turned into a frown. Well, more of an angry pout. She snatched the bottle away from Stiles and screwed the cap back on, sitting back and examining his work. Stiles shook his head. "Do you want to?"

He shrugged. What he remembered from last night was Derek at the bar, alone, and Stiles three shots in, and Stiles was flirting with the bartender while Scott fell upon the pool table in the back with some other random dudes and Lydia and Allison played pong with friends, and then the bartender had to tend to some other customer, and Derek was there in his leather jacket and brooding eyes and Stiles had thought irrationally about his mother, and then Derek saw him looking and that was that; Stiles was hooked.

Stiles bought them both drinks, fiddled with the stupidly tiny red straw from his own between his lips, made sure to smirk when Derek's eyes lingered there for too long.

Then he had probably had another drink. He texted Lydia. Then?

Well, he was waking up with the sun in his eyes and his bottom pleasantly sore. His voice was rough in a way that suggested he had probably given Derek an enthusiastic blowjob. He had a series of long red scratches on his back that he was definitely _not_ telling Lydia about, and a bruise forming on his inner thigh that was just big enough to be made from a sharp nip of teeth. The sex had probably been fantastic, Stiles thought sadly. And he remembered barely any of it.

Lydia's eyes turned a little sad and he hated that. Almost as a reflex Stiles plastered a grin on his face. "C'mon, Lyds," he said, playing with one of her ringlet curls. "You know how it is."

"You," she began in an admonishing tone, squinting her eyes a little. She almost flicked him on the nose but stopped short of it, remembering her drying nail polish. "You are impossible and also kind of a slut, and I love you."

"You spoil me," Stiles argued, still grinning. He went in for it - he ducked his head and blew a raspberry onto her neck. Lydia squealed, laughing, and that little sad look in her eyes disappeared, forgotten.

From the kitchen, Allison called out, "You know this is why you're both single!"

.

That was not why they were both single.

To be fair, Lydia hadn't been single until she moved to New York. Or really - Lydia had only become single after a whole high school career of dating the most emotionally-stunted high school jock ever named Jackson, who in his senior year discovered he was adopted, proceeded to have a break down, and then dumped Lydia under the guise of really 'finding himself' again. She had wanted to be there for him, but he made it difficult when when he picked up and moved to Los Angeles, claiming that he wanted to find his birth parents.

Lydia, never short on acquaintance-friends but desperately short on _true_ friends, packed up and moved, too. She decided on Columbia and roomed with Allison, whom Scott had followed to Hunter College in the city.

Stiles didn't end up in New York City until junior year, when he transferred from his UC school to NYU, after two years of exploring his increasingly fluid idea of sexuality in a city that welcomed it and then discovering that he had grown tired of it, or maybe he had used up all he could of California. He transferred at a time when Allison and Scott were deciding to move in together, to take their relationship to the next level, and had pretty much been manhandled into moving in with Lydia.

At first he had been terrified. Lydia had been and still was his first love, and he thought that he would always have some sort of weakness for her, but they grew close over drunken nights and escapades, over licking their wounds - real or imagined - the next day, over marathons of horrible television and pig-out fests of greasy Chinese take-out.

They were all seniors this year. Lydia was going to be taking a gap-year to study for the LSAT, and the GMAT, and MCAT, too, next year; while Allison found a position at a non-profit in the city. Scott was training to become a veterinarian, and Stiles would be continuing on at NYU as a graduate student. He worked at Common Grounds in the village part-time when he wasn't in class, or tutoring, or studying; more often than not, Lydia found her way into the city from their apartment in Queens to take up a seat in the corner of the shop, 'studying' but really wasting time on the internet and checking out the men who entered for a quick bite or caffeinated pick-up.

Life with Lydia became easier and easier. Gradually the terror subsided and was replaced with something else: Stiles was convinced - Lydia was his soulmate. But there was a line between being _in_ love and loving, and Stiles loved Lydia with all his heart. He just wasn't _in_ love with her. Not anymore.

.

The counter was tall enough that when Stiles sat on a low stool behind the register, the top of his head was just barely visible over the rough surface of the wood. He had his laptop balanced on his knees as he read over some of the responses students had submitted to their most recently assigned article for his Social Psych class where he was helping the professor. Not exactly a teaching assistant, but something close to it. There were maybe half a dozen customers sitting around the small shop, and no line. Greenberg, the other guy on shift, was probably taking a nap in the backroom with his earphones covering his ears. Sunlight streamed in from the slanted windows in the ceiling onto the long tables that made up the seating.

In the front window, a flower wilted. It was a slow Friday. He played some jazzy pop from his iPod plugged into the speakers. He was pretty sure the kid who had ordered a large double-shot latte was snoozing behind his book.

Cold air breezed through the shop as the door opened, ruffling some of the cafe logo shirts they were selling that were hanging like on a line to dry between the counter and the door, and the bell above the door chimed. Stiles looked up and quickly back down again, blush blooming over his cheeks.

Of course, this was his life.

Derek strode to the counter in an impeccably tailored dark grey suit, the lines of his body as sharp as his cheekbones. Behind him followed another man, similarly dressed, though with noticeably less scruff. "Best coffee this side of Houston," the man behind Derek was saying as the door closed. "Better than a blow job." He smirked.

Derek met Stiles' eyes when he dared to look again, and then he said: "Doubtful."

Stiles nearly broke his laptop in half in his scramble to stand and man the register, remembering belatedly that he was being paid to do so. Worse still, he recognized the man behind Derek. He slapped a smile on his face and greeted the regular. "Hey, Harvey."

"Stiles." Harvey nodded his head. "Isaac not around?"

"He switched up his shifts." Stiles shrugged. Isaac was another part-timer at Common Grounds who had slowly crept his way into Stiles' circle of friends. "The usual?"

Stiles was already putting the grounds into the espresso machine. Harvey liked his espresso dark and rich and pure. He liked taking it in a tiny single-shot glass and washing it down with drip coffee.

"And a latte for my friend," he added, clapping Derek on the shoulder, in a tone of voice that clearly disparaged the latte. Stiles scoffed. He made _awesome_ , drop-your-pants lattes, okay?

But Derek didn't look like he cared about the latte at all. He was looking at Stiles, surprise etched onto his face, the same hazel eyes that Stiles saw this morning pinning him to his spot behind the counter. Stiles, very deliberately, winked.

This seemed to jolt Derek out of his surprise, as he straightened his already straight tie and placed a hand on the counter. "I've got this," Derek rumbled, and really that was the only way to describe his voice, the way it made Stiles' toes curl in his boots. Derek reached into the jacket of his suit, but, in a fit of insanity, Stiles reached over to lay a hand on Derek's wrist, stopping him. Derek stared at Stiles' hand. Stiles flushed all the way down to his collarbone.

"I have a tab," Harvey explained with a raised eyebrow between the two.

Stiles snatched away his hand like it had been burned. Derek was glaring at him, nostrils flaring. Okay, so the guy didn't like to be touched after…after unexpectedly seeing his one-night stand manning the espresso machines while out for coffee with a co-worker who probably thought Derek was straight-laced or even - god, Stiles hurt to think about it - just plain _straight,_ on paper.

"And besides," Harvey continued, steamrolling over the awkward exchange. "I'm supposed to be the one wooing _you._ "

Derek glanced at him sharply, a twitch in his lips that curved into a smirk. "Does Pearson Hardman woo?" he asked.

"Only if we really want to get you into bed."

Stiles turned away, nearly burning himself steaming the milk. He very carefully poured the foam out into a design of a curling leaf in one of the fat mugs they used as the two men walked to the long tables behind them, trying not to eavesdrop on their conversation and failing. Mostly because trying not to eavesdrop for him was like telling a fish to try not to swim.

"You know we'd welcome you at Pearson Hardman," Harvey was saying as they took their seats, across from each other. At one end of the table was the kid who was sleeping in his book. "Harvard grad," Harvey began to list, "history of wins, and model good looks? You should have come to us first."

Derek said, "Kind of hard to get away from the family business."

Stiles was gathering all of the drinks - a mug of latte, a glass of iced coffee, and a single shot of espresso - onto a tray when Harvey hummed and said more softly than before, "Unfortunate circumstances, but everyone will benefit. Well, everyone but Peter Hale."

"He's getting results," Derek told Harvey. "But I don't approve of his methods."

Stiles reached their table and placed the drinks before the two men, hyper-aware of how close he was to Derek. Derek's lips twisted into something like a grimace. Just as Stiles was turning away, _his_ hand reached out and encircled _Stiles'_ wrist, and god he really was burning up this time; he almost dropped his tray at the movement. "Do you have cinnamon?" Derek asked him, and Stiles didn't miss the way Derek's thumb was rubbing over his pulse under his wrist.

"Yeah," Stiles tried, but his voice came out breathy and scratched. He cleared his throat, brought his wrist out of Derek's grasp, held the tray up between them like a shield. "Yeah. We've got some. I'll bring it over."

His boots were unnaturally loud as he walked back to the counter, fetched the cinnamon sticks that they kept in a jar by the register, and brought the jar back to Derek at the table. "Here," he said unnecessarily. He lingered, also unnecessarily.

"Thanks," Derek said. He looked up at Stiles from beneath long, dark lashes. "Stiles, was it?" There was a hint of a smile in the corners of his lips.

Stiles sucked in a breath, suddenly winded. Oh, so it was going to be like that. He nodded. "And you are?"

"Derek," he replied smoothly, holding out a hand for them to shake. Stiles shook, in more ways than one. "Harvey claims that this is the best place for a drip coffee in the city."

"It is," Stiles said, smug and certain.

"Then I guess I'll be here often," Derek promised. He had his body turned towards Stiles, and he winked on the side that Harvey wouldn't be able to see. Stiles' heart skipped a beat. His mind raced. What universe had he woken up in this morning, with the sun hot on his face? Because this most definitely was _not_ his reality. Of all the casual sex Stiles has had, he's maybe seen two others more than once, and never by coincidence.

Derek was a coincidence. An unfairly attractive one who looked like he was actually interested in meeting Stiles again, and preferably not by coincidence the next time. He walked away on stiff legs and buried himself in the electric glare of his computer screen until another customer walked through the door.

The lawyers - and, yeah, if Derek was talking to _Harvey Specter_ , he was definitely a lawyer, or at least working to be one - were talking shop, and Stiles was forcibly trying to ignore the fact that Derek was there, so he read, and took care of customers, and changed the filter a few times more than necessary until he heard the scrape of the long bench moving against the hardwood floors. They were leaving.

Stiles glanced up, slapping the screen of his laptop shut, and watched as Derek and Harvey strode up to the counter, fastening the buttons of their suit jackets. Derek swept a hand over the tip jar and dropped something in.

The bell rang again as they left, Harvey calling out behind him, "Always fantastic, Stiles!"

He couldn't get his hand into the tip jar fast enough.

He pulled out the business card that Derek had left and turned it over in his hands, frowning. It wasn't even _Derek's_ business card. It was cream-colored and heavy card stock, with plain typeface for a lounge in the center and the address printed underneath the name. On the back was a time, scribbled quickly in black ink. _9pm._

The lounge wasn't far from here, and Stiles was finished with his shift at 9pm exactly, but Lydia's voice lectured him as he entertained joining him that night. "What if he was a creep?" Lydia's voice argued. "What if he was a pervert? What if the lounge was actually a shady club with sex rooms in the back? What if he was dangerous?"

But Lydia's voice couldn't drown out his own desire to find out for himself. So what if Derek was a perv? Stiles wasn't exactly the missionary sort, anyway. And danger? Well, there was a reason he liked the leather jacket Derek had been wearing last night.

He put the card into his pocket and chewed his lip, knowing that his decision was already made.

.

Stiles was only going to have one drink this time. At least, this is what he told himself. He probably wouldn't even be allowed entrance, he realized, looking down at what he was wearing. The lounge was on the top floor of a building, and there was an elevator at the far end of a corridor with three that had a doorman standing by it as soon as he entered the building. Stiles scrubbed at his hair, indecision warring in his mind, but then the doorman - bouncer - called the elevator after checking something quickly on his phone. He was dressed in a black suit with black accents that did nothing to hide how the fabric had to stretch across his chest.

Stiles stepped into the elevator.

At the last moment, a couple rushed in, too, giddy already and tripping over themselves. They fell upon each other's lips before noticing Stiles, who tried his hardest to melt into the corner. Hastily, they parted, out of common decency, but Stiles didn't fail to notice the little pinch that the lady gave her man's ass.

As soon as the doors slid open he was taking long strides to the first thing that caught his attention, a long, sleek bar that looked like it was topped with obsidian in the low lighting. Before taking a seat on a stool he looked down at his outfit again and sighed. Well, he had made it this far, hadn't he? There were a few other people seated at the bar, all looking like they had walked straight out of GQ, sipping from drinks that had curls of citrus peel balanced precariously on their edges. Stiles shrugged off his jacket and flagged the bartender down, taking a seat.

One drink, he reminded himself. And if Derek showed up, great. If not, he was still having a drink at this ridiculous, exclusive lounge that you had to ride an elevator to get into, and Scott would explode from the hilarity of it.

The bartender was on his way over when someone took the empty seat next to him, and there was Derek sliding gracefully onto the stool, still wearing that grey suit. Stiles gaped. He didn't know whether to be disappointed or awed. "We'll have a couple of reds," Derek ordered for them. "Surprise me."

Stiles said the first thing that came to mind: "I don't like red." He frowned. "And I don't know that I like you ordering for me."

"That's probably because you've only had shitty box wine from Target." A sliver of Derek's smirk was there, on his lips. Stiles watched the bob of his Adam's apple as he spoke. "And you will," he finished, gravel in his voice.

Arousal curled itself around Stiles' gut. One drink, he reminded himself, but then the bartender was bringing over their glasses of wine. Stiles let his tongue dart out to wet his lips, and Derek's eyes followed the movement. "There's no Target around," Stiles babbled. "I go to Trader Joe's."

Derek snorted. "Figures." He picked the glass up by its stem and Stiles mimicked the gesture, gently clinking their glasses together. Derek watched him take his first sip before taking his own. "What's the verdict?"

Stiles licked his lips again. The wine was tart and heavy, ending sweetly on his tongue. "Not bad," he said truthfully.

"Did you get back home all right?" Derek took another sip of his wine, and Stiles felt his face grow hot.

"Yeah," he lied, though he wasn't sure why he did. "Thanks for the cab fare." He could have easily told Derek that he'd just gone to a friend's. His voice cracked a little at the end.

Derek quirked an eyebrow but didn't mention the slip. "Good," is all he said.

Silence descended over them. As much as a lounge that was playing ethereal house music could be silent, anyway. Stiles found himself bobbing his head to the beat, and when he went to take another sip of his wine, his glass was empty. He stared at it, confused.

"Another?" Derek asked him. Stiles directed his stare to Derek, and then to Derek's wine glass. It was mostly empty, too. And Derek hadn't done anything weird yet.

The words slipped out from between his lips before he could stop them: "If you have one."

And Derek smiled, his teeth flashing, and - oh - they were sharp and perfect. He threw back the remnants of his glass into his mouth and Stiles watched his throat work in the dim light.

"All right," he said, and ordered them another round.

.

Derek's hands were _everywhere_ , and the skin that he touched burned.

The mattress dipped and molded to their bodies, and Stiles' breath stuttered when Derek's teeth nipped at the underside of his knee, and then again when he mouthed at the bruise that had formed on the pale skin of his inner thigh. Then Derek bit, and Stiles keened, and he lay back, panting, when Derek pushed a broad hand against his belly, and worked a finger inside of him, letting his knuckles drag along the rim, until Stiles was open-mouthed gasping, stuffed on Derek's fingers, one of his legs thrown over Derek's shoulder, his hands clasped together behind Derek's neck. He lost his grip, and pawed at Derek's back when Derek rubbed his thumb along the sensitive, stretched skin.

He shook, he couldn't stop shaking. "C'mon," he urged into Derek's mouth. "C'mon, _come on._ "

Derek was panting, too, balanced on one elbow and his knees. He growled when his fingers slipped free and whispered back, "I'm gonna fill you up, Stiles."

A statement, or a promise, and Stiles nodded, desperate, moaning when Derek finally did.

.

This time, he woke before Derek did, and the sun was not in his eyes.

The sheets didn't feel like satin anymore over his legs. He was naked, and cold, and Derek's arm was heavy across his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. He had to work again that night, and a response paper to write, and 150 pages' worth of reading to summarize.

He stared at the ceiling until it felt like he was going cross-eyed, and then as smoothly as he could, he slipped out from underneath Derek's arms, gathered his clothes, shrugging each item on as he found them, and walked out of the apartment.

.


	2. Chapter 2

When he got back to Queens, Lydia was cooking something that smelled like onions and garlic in the kitchen. She called out a quick greeting when she heard their front door slam and Stiles called one out in response while he slid out of his jacket and hoodie, leaving them both over the back of their couch as he walked through the apartment to the bathroom. They could afford two bedrooms in Queens, albeit two small bedrooms, and shared the bathroom that wasn't connected to either of their rooms.

He started to unbutton Scott's shirt that he was still wearing. It fell to the ground outside the bathroom door. He shimmied out of his jeans and briefs and closed the door and turned the shower on running hot until steam began to fill the small room. The mirror fogged up. Stiles wiped away some of the condensation and looked at his own face in the reflective surface. Some parts of his neck were rubbed raw and red from stubble. He ghosted the pad of his finger over one of the burns and hissed at the sudden flare of pain. Then he stepped under the spray.

At first, it burned. The water was scalding hot but his skin quickly grew accustomed to it, and it stung when it hit the long scratches that Derek had left on his back. He stood under it until the scratches didn't sting anymore.

Distantly, he heard the door open and shut, felt a chill at steam escaping, and when he was done there was a pile of clean clothes on the sink counter. He toweled off and mechanically dressed, trying not to think. Lydia had put out a t-shirt and his most comfortable sweatpants.

When he emerged from the bathroom she was waiting for him on the couch, legs crossed on the cushions, and there was a movie playing on their television on mute. She patted her lap and waited.

Stiles climbed onto the couch and put his head on her lap, curling up onto his side. There were thoughts threatening at the corners of his mind, so he forced himself to read the Closed Captioning on the movie, while Lydia threaded her fingers through his short hair.

"Oh, honey," she said, her voice like a song. "It's one of those days, isn't it."

After his mother died, Stiles used to get panic attacks. The kind that crept through him slowly until suddenly he was drowning under the weight of his grief, and he couldn't breathe or think or do anything except tuck his head between his knees and wait for it to pass.

Worse were the ones where he _could_ think. Thoughts of his mother and her lavender and cotton scent, and of how she had suffered, cancer eating away at her warmth and smiles, and of her absence in the world now. His father was the local sheriff, and sometimes Stiles imagined getting a call in the middle of the night, telling him to stay over at his neighbor's house because his dad was in the hospital.

And Scott had asthma, and what if one day he lost his inhaler? He missed his mother. He missed her with all his heart, and he missed his father, too. He tried his best, after, to take care of his dad, to make sure he was getting enough sleep and eating the right foods, but sometimes his dad had looked at him and sighed, lips twisting, before he reached for the whiskey they kept above the cabinets in the kitchen. His father would drink and fall asleep at the kitchen table, and Stiles would think, _I did that. That's my fault._

Lydia said, "Your dad loves you, you know that," and Stiles realized he had been saying everything out loud. He turned his face into her lap and spoke into the crook of her knee.

"I know," he said. He thought about Derek and felt shame creep over him like tiny spiders. He shivered. "God, Lyds, what am I doing?"

She didn't stop carding her fingers through his hair. Her skin smelled like strawberries. "You're twenty-two and being twenty-two. You're graduating this year and getting your Masters after. You're celebrating the fact that you're a brilliant person and you are one of the few who can actually keep up with me, so count yourself blessed."

A huff of laughter escaped his mouth, and Lydia hummed her approval. "See?" she continued, "It's not so bad." Stiles nuzzled her thigh.

"You're the only one for me," he told her leg.

"I know. I'm pretty perfect, aren't I?"

With her free hand, she unmuted the television, and the movie's dialogue quietly filled the living room with white noise. Neither of them was really watching, but they kept their eyes on the screen and Lydia kept running her fingers through his hair, a constant pressure against his scalp, and gradually Stiles pushed his thoughts back to the far corners of his mind, where they would stay until he couldn't contain them again anymore.

"This is my monthly quota of Stiles time," Lydia joked, sensing his impending calm. It was always the same joke.

"Fair trade for monthly Lydia time," Stiles quipped, earning a light slap to the side of his head.

He glared at her and she looked fondly down at him. "You make a good point," she agreed.

They finished the movie and switched it over to the Food Network, when suddenly Lydia remembered the quiche she had put into the oven and leapt from the couch, jostling Stiles' position.

.

Sunday passed by lazily, as most Sundays were wont to do. And then it was Monday, and Stiles got caught up in the flurry of his classes, and coffee in between them, and catching up with friends. He had created his schedule so that all of his classes were clustered together in the first half of the week, which left him available for shifts at Common Grounds on Thursday morning and Friday afternoons, and before he could blink it was Wednesday night and the screen of his laptop was blurring in front of him as he highlighted text and took notes and tried to be a responsible student.

He slept for a whole 8 hours and arose on Thursday feeling like he was just beginning his week again. Lydia was out already; once a week she volunteered at a small non-profit uptown, researching legalese for them and pointing out loopholes. He puttered around the apartment, bringing his laptop into the living room and turning up the playlist he was listening to, not really in a rush since Isaac, his shift-partner on Thursday mornings, always got to the cafe ridiculously early. He dressed in some dark jeans and a soft, hooded sweater. The neckline dipped into a 'v' below his throat. Then he strapped on his boots and contemplated bringing his computer with him, but Thursdays were usually busier than Friday afternoons, and Isaac never really left him alone enough to get school work done, anyway. He left his laptop on the couch.

On his way to the subway station, he called his dad. He picked up on the first ring. "Stiles?"

The worry in his dad's voice made him smile, but it was a sad sort of smile. "Hey, dad."

"What's wrong?"

He walked past a bodega and waved at the owner inside. "Nothing's wrong. I can't just call my favorite dad and say hello?"

"I'm your _only_ dad," his father reminded him, exasperation already creeping into his voice.

"Doesn't make you any less of a favorite," Stiles said cheerfully. On the other end of the line, his dad laughed.

"But really," his dad said after the laughter had died down. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Stiles said immediately. "It's fine. Everything's good. I'm fine."

A sigh came through the phone. "I know that tone of voice." His dad waited patiently for the truth. As sheriff, he had all kinds of patience.

Stiles breathed into the receiver. He waited until he was walking up the steps to the station before he admitted, "Everything's really fine. I just wanted to check up on you. Needed to check up on you. You're okay?"

"Fit as a fiddle. Ms. McCall made me oven fries the other night. You know I think I like those better than the fried ones, now?"

Stiles knew that his dad was humoring him, but regardless, his words made the tight knot of anxiety he had been carrying around since yesterday in his chest loosen, just a little. "Oven fries are still fries," he admonished.

"Little steps," his dad said. "Little victories."

The train rumbled into the platform, clanging metal and screeching iron drowning out the sound of his father's voice. "What?" he shouted into the phone.

"I said, I love you, son," his dad shouted back.

The train screeched to a halt and the doors opened. There were more people getting on than getting off. "I love you, too," Stiles said. "I have to go. Take care, okay?"

"I always do," he promised.

.

As soon as he stepped through the door, Isaac was tossing an apron at him and demanding his help at the counter. The line wound its way to the first long table in the back. "You're late," Isaac complained.

Stiles looked at the clock behind him mounted on the wall. "I'm on time," he said, grinning. "You're just early, like always." He fastened the apron onto his waist and hung up his jacket behind the counter, keeping on his knit hat and rubbing his hands together. There were a lot of familiar faces in line, so he got started right away on making their drinks while Isaac manned the register.

They worked well together, Stiles couldn't help but think as he smoothly produced three triple-shot lattes, one with a pump of hazelnut, and the other two with vanilla, and Isaac rang them up for the right customers.

It hadn't always been so smooth, though. It had taken weeks for Stiles to get past Isaac's wall of timid silence, weeks of self-deprecating jokes and sarcasm before Isaac would even crack a smile at him. But once he cracked, the walls came tumbling down. Isaac was his own combination of sarcasm and bitter humor and Stiles loved it.

They worked like that for the morning hour rush, until there were only a couple of customers in line every half hour or so, and Stiles could take a moment to replenish the scones that had sold out from their display. He ducked into the back where there was a fresh batch of scones waiting on a tray for him, hearing the bell ringing at the front door when he was reemerging, back pressing against the door to swing it open.

"Hey," Isaac greeted the customer. "Double latte with cinnamon?"

"Please," a familiar voice said. The knot wound its way back tight in Stiles' chest.

He turned around and looked at Derek. Today, his suit was a dark navy, and his tie was red. Isaac busied himself with making the latte and Stiles watched Derek watch him replace the scones in the display. He could feel his face heating up, flushing. Once he was done replacing the scones, propping the tray against the wall, he stood dumbly at the counter, mouth working but no words coming out. He should apologize. He should offer Derek a scone, or something. Derek's eyes were dark with some emotion that Stiles couldn't place. It was probably anger. Or disgust.

"Good morning," he ended up saying. Isaac placed Derek's drink in front of him on the counter. Derek reached for his wallet, but Stiles stopped him. "It's on the house."

His eyebrows rose minutely in question, but Stiles didn't want to explain himself. Isaac looked between them, could probably feel the tension in their stares and asked, "You guys know each other?"

Derek's eyebrows rose again, higher this time. "We've met," he explained.

He took his latte off the counter and leveled Stiles with his eyes as he took his first sip. It reminded him of the wine from last weekend, of watching Derek's throat work in the dim light. Suddenly Stiles felt nauseated.

Derek raised his paper cup like a toast and turned to leave. "Thanks for the coffee, Stiles," he threw over his shoulder. The bell rang as the door shut behind him.

Stiles sank onto the counter, resting his forehead against the cool wood. He felt Isaac's hand rubbing between his shoulder blades, offering comfort. "Bad hookup?" Isaac guessed, and Stiles wanted to laugh at that. Somehow, he couldn't call Derek a hookup in his mind. He was something else.

"You have no idea," he mumbled, and Isaac sighed in sympathy.

.

Derek didn't come by the coffee shop on Friday. He recognized the heavy stone of disappoint inside of him, couldn't push it away.

His phone buzzed in his pocket as soon as he was finished with his shift. It was Lydia.

 _guess who is in town!_ she had texted excitedly.

 _who?_ Stiles texted back. His phone buzzed again, almost immediately, and this time he picked up. "Who?" he asked Lydia out loud.

"Danny!" Lydia squealed. "He just called me! He wants to go out tonight; you in?"

Stiles scrubbed at his forehead. Danny was Jackson's best friend from home. He had moved to LA shortly after Jackson did, and found work in the entertainment circles there. Stiles thought he was some promoter, or something. He knew that Lydia had stayed in touch with Danny even after Jackson's abrupt break-up, and legitimately marveled at how he could stay neutral between such large personalities.

"You know you're in," Lydia decided for him. "Call Isaac. Tell him to come, too. Danny wants to meet him!" She hung up suddenly. A moment later came another buzz: _meet us @ park in meatpacking. 10. borrow one of scott's black shirts._

His mind drifted to the lounge that Derek had brought him to last weekend. It was close to the meatpacking district, too. And he lived around the area. He wondered if he would run into him, then decided that he was thinking too much about Derek and really shouldn't have cared.

 _okay_ , he texted back.

Lydia sent him a smiley face.

.

They had drifted from Park after a couple of drinks, Scott and Allison begging off before the group relocated to their next hangout and instead going back to their apartment together, pleasantly intoxicated. Isaac had brought along his friends, Erica and Boyd, whose relationship was constantly just about to fall apart. They told everyone they kept it together by taking frequent breaks.

Danny had wanted to dance. He got them into a club-lounge in the area without cover, and proceeded to procure bottle service and a table. Lydia squealed. She loved it when Danny visited, and possibly for this reason alone.

Stiles was straddling the line between inebriated and drunk, and the lights were low colorful and perfect and there was a fog machine, somewhere, covering the dance floor with a layer of smoke. Faces glittered in the dancing lights, and naked arms and bare legs. At the table, Lydia kept asking questions about Jackson.

He didn't want to hear about Jackson. Neither did Danny want to talk about him, judging from the expression on his face, and Erica and Boyd simply wore matching looks of boredom, but Lydia was persistent, and charming, and if you tilted your head and really listened to her questions, she was sad, too.

"You must be such a hit in LA," Lydia was saying, laying her hand on Danny's arm. "I bet you and Jackson knock 'em all dead."

"Oh yeah," Danny nodded, smiling his easy smile. "Between the both of us we've got the whole population covered."

There was a tiny twitch in Lydia's eyes but that was all. Stiles saw it and wished she would stop fishing. To him, Jackson was lower than pond scum.

"Well, we don't do too badly here ourselves," Stiles boasted with a smirk, though it was probably lopsided. Isaac was sitting beside him, and Stiles looked at him and saw that he was one of the glittering faces, his blonde curls flickering blue and green and pink in the lights, as music throbbed around them. He grabbed Isaac by the wrist. "Let's dance," he shouted over the music.

Isaac's returning smirk was sharp and shiny. "Finally!" he laughed, and Stiles dragged him out of his seat and onto the crowded dance floor, where bodies were writhing against each other, sweat and alcohol and glitter all over everyone's skin.

He knew from experience that Isaac was a possessive dancer. He liked touching, and guiding, and shifting with his hands and hips, and once they were far out enough into the dance floor that if the crowd shifted, Lydia and Danny and the table disappeared, that was exactly what Isaac did. He turned Stiles around with the palm of his hand braced against a hip until they were pressed flush against each other, chest to chest. Isaac was just a little bit taller than he was, so Stiles brought his arms up to rest on his shoulders, and Isaac answered with a low, slow dip of his hips.

"This isn't going to make work weird, is it?" Stiles asked. He asked the same question every time they went out, and Isaac always said the same thing:

"It doesn't have to." He grinned and ground against Stiles, and there were bodies pressing in on all sides, but Isaac skimmed a hand over Stiles' stomach, traced up and flit his thumb over Stiles' nipple, and Stiles gasped at the sudden contact, nearly losing his balance. Isaac laughed.

The crowd parted a little and Stiles could see Lydia. She was leaning into the heel of her hand, elbow on the table, and her eyes were dark and partly obscured by a curtain of strawberry blonde hair. Danny said something, and her lips moved in response, laughing a laugh that didn't reach the rest of her face. "Lydia is _so_ beautiful," Stiles suddenly blurted to Isaac drunkenly. He turned back around abruptly to face him and swayed, though Isaac made it look like they were swaying to the music."I know," Isaac said.

"She deserves the best," he explained, while Isaac's smile was tucked into the corners of his mouth. Their faces were close together. He could feel his breath against his cheek.

Lydia was better than Jackson, and deserved more than some guy who would drop her when things got too hot to handle. She was beautiful and smart and Stiles' best friend, but she was also in love - or at least she thought she was - and the world was unfair. If Jackson came to New York to be with her, Stiles would have allowed it, but only because it would have made her happy.

Isaac was warm and sticky in front of him; Stiles closed his eyes and smashed their lips together, swallowing a groan.

The way Isaac kissed was different from the way he danced. Kissing Isaac was soft and yielding. Stiles licked his tongue along the seam of his lips and Isaac opened for him, breathy and wet. He wound his fingers into Isaac's hair and pulled until their lips were just barely touching, and when he opened his eyes Isaac was looking at something past Stiles. His fingers pressed and pulled against Stiles' hips until they were fit between each other's thighs, and then there was another set of hands tracing Stiles' shoulders, light and delicate.

Erica's sultry voice was hot against his ear. "Boyd had to go home," she purred. "So I'm staying over at Isaac's." She gripped Stiles' chin with her manicured fingers and turned him until she could press a whisper of a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Isaac rolled his hips and Stiles felt it in his toes. "You coming, too?" she asked sweetly.

.

Isaac was retching into the toilet in the bathroom. Stiles grimaced when he heard the wet splash of it. He was sprawled on the old couch in Isaac's apartment, goosebumps raised along his arms, naked under a light throw blanket that bore a color that, unfortunately, reminded him of vomit. The smell of crisping bacon filled the air, and moments later the microwave beeped.

Erica came over with a plate piled with the bubbling strips of meat, folding herself onto the couch by Stiles' legs. She had put on panties and one of Isaac's t-shirts, by the looks of it. She grinned, wolfish. "That was fun last night." Bacon snapped between her teeth. "We should do it again sometime. Too bad Isaac can't hold his liquor."

Erica glanced forlornly at the bathroom. The door was open and Isaac was still draped over the porcelain of the toilet. "Poor baby," she said. She shrugged. "At least it's always the morning after, and not, you know, _during_."

Stiles' eyes narrowed. The sun came in from behind Erica, throwing her face into shadow. She mimed vomiting at his continued silence, and Stiles kicked at her with his feet. "Yeah, yeah, I got that. That's gross, Erica."

She smirked, held out a piece of bacon like an offering. "You're not going to --" she made a noise like Isaac was making. Stiles rolled his eyes but didn't take the bacon.

"No, god no. Isaac's stomach is like made out of daisies or something. I swear - he's so sensitive."

He was running out of fingers to count on for the number of times he had woken up because Isaac had to launch himself from the bed or the couch, aiming straight for the toilet. But once he was done regurgitating the little he had the night before, he was almost always fully recovered and ready for another night of debauchery. "I can hear you!" Isaac cried pitifully from the bathroom.

Erica waved the bacon around in his face. "So you gonna eat some, or what? You're not, like, _vegetarian_ , are you?" She said the word like it was on some forbidden list. Stiles shook his head. She shrugged and crunched the offered bacon between her own teeth instead. "Would have surprised me," she said, grinning. "Since you were such a pro at _eating sausage_ last night."

She threw her head back and laughed without inhibition while Stiles stole two pieces of bacon from her plate in retaliation. He nibbled on the savory bits, annoyed. "Come on, you walked right into that one." Erica slapped him on the shoulder.

"Did you even--?" Stiles flapped his hands around in a way that could either mean _join a flock of birds_ or _join in on the fun_. The look Erica sent him suggested that she thought he was indicating the former, but then her smile turned salacious. She sat back as Isaac came out of the bathroom, wiping at his mouth.

"Oh, don't you worry about it. I had my own fun."

Stiles thought maybe that meant she watched, but he distinctly remembered her breasts pressed against his back, her smoky voice in his ear, urging him on. Whatever.

Sex with Isaac was always like this. It was fun and great and casual, but also strangely unremarkable. Maybe because they'd done it with each other and to each other more than once.

Isaac leaned over the back of the couch, his blonde curls perfect, and kissed Erica on her cheek. She balked. "Don't touch me with your rangy vomit breath!" she warned him, but turned her face anyway so that the next kiss landed on her lips.

"I brushed," Isaac said.

Erica put the plate down on the table in front of the couch and reached for Stiles. "You want in?" she said, so matter-of-fact, Isaac peppering kisses over her neck and dragging the collar of her t-shirt down to reach her shoulder.

Something vibrated between him and the cushions on the couch. Stiles dug around and found his phone, which blinked a warning for low battery. He saw he had over a dozen unread texts, most of them from Lydia. "I'll pass," he said, frowning at his phone and bringing up Lydia's texts.

 _where are u?!?_ , was the first.

He extricated himself from the tangle of sheets and limbs on the couch while he read the others, rooting around for his clothes, too.

 _danny's hotel room is swank :)_ was next, followed by, _oh he just got a txt from isaac?? you are w him? ok be safe luv u_

He read the next texts after pulling on Scott's t-shirt that he had borrowed.

_danny invited me to LA_

_should i go?_

_he said i can stay with him_

_i'm going to go_

_stiles i'm going to go to LA and i'm going to see him_

_i'm crazy right?_

There were no texts after that. He stood in front of the couch where Isaac and Erica were making out with his jacket halfway on and his pants unzipped. _you're not crazy_ , he sent her. Then, _if it makes you happy._

His phone gave another warning vibration of low battery. Any minute now it was going to shut itself off. Before it could, Lydia fired a message back.

She wrote, _happiness has nothing to do with it._

.


	3. Chapter 3

By next Friday, Stiles had almost forgotten the knot in his gut that formed whenever he thought about he and Derek's chilly interaction. Mostly because he tried not to think about him, at all. But Derek's hazel eyes and brooding eyebrows were always there in his periphery, waiting to be explored. He found himself in a particularly boring lecture class beginning research on motivation theory (which was totally what the class was talking about, anyway) and winding his way through the internet and through Wikipedia and eventually landing on Pearson Hardman's highly stylish website and reading through the biographies of their partners. Derek wasn't on their website, yet.

He stopped himself from simply googling _Derek Hale_ , worried that a line would be crossed then that he could never return from. Namely, stalker-obsession territory.

So, when the knot reformed early in his Friday afternoon shift with alarming speed it took him completely by surprise, and Derek walked through the door of Common Grounds and Stiles' hand slipped from the counter and he sent scalding hot milk all over the floor and down his chest.

"Oh, dear god." He curved forward out of reflex, pulling the wet shirt he was now wearing from his skin before it could feel like it was melting against him. His chest tingled with the heat, and he realized that Derek had rushed to the counter when he saw what had happened, armed with a pile of napkins that he had commandeered from the counter space. He stood with the napkins clenched in one hand while Stiles dripped cooling milk all over the floor.

He could feel Derek's eyes roving over the lines the wet fabric created on his body, and Derek swallowed. "Need a hand?" Somehow, his voice was even rougher than normal. He held out the napkins.

"Yes, ah." Stiles took the napkins and started patting himself down. There were a few other customers in the cafe who had looked up at the commotion but were now already back to minding their own businesses. "Thank you. I don't know how - wow, I'm such a huge klutz like 100% of the time, you know? Thanks."

Derek's fingers twitched on the counter, like he wanted to reach over and make sure Stiles wiped up the mess still at his feet, but he refrained. "You're just a spaz," Derek told him with a sigh. "It's different."

Stiles froze from where he was wiping at his neck. He was probably going to smell like sour milk all day if he didn't do something about it, and Derek was -

Laughing.

Derek was _laughing_ at him.

He scowled, irritated. And then he was even more irritated at being irritated, since he shouldn't have expected anything less, anyway. He _had_ left Derek after a night of truly amazing coitus without an explanation. A second time.

Well, he reminded himself. He had hardly been alone at kicking himself out of Derek's apartment, that first time.

Derek's laughter was a low, rumbling thing. If Stiles weren't so busy being really offended by it, he would have taken a second listen and let the sound run pleasantly over his skin and into his bones. His laughter was a bit like everything else Derek was to him: dark and unexpected and addictive.

"Yeah, thanks," Stiles muttered. "Laugh at the guy who now has third-degree burns on his abs. That's _so_ funny. I'm going to change." He turned away, stuffing the used napkins into the trash bin under the counter. "I'll send Greenberg out."

Derek's laughter stopped abruptly. "No, Stiles, wait --"

But Stiles was already past the door to the backroom, and Greenberg was hunched over his own textbook and watching the timer on another batch of cookies. He looked up when Stiles entered.

"Who's out front?" Greenberg asked him, and then he wrinkled his nose at the state of him. "Dude, is that milk?"

"Yes, and can you go to the counter really quickly while I wrestle together what little dignity I have left to dig through our old shirts?" he snapped. There was a pile of boxes lining some shelves along the far wall that held merchandise - t-shirts and mugs and tumblers and the like, and Stiles made for the box of t-shirts. He pulled one box out from its shelf and hefted it to the ground with grunt before rifling through it for the correct size.

Greenberg didn't ask questions. He left his textbook open and hurried out into the front, shooting Stiles a sorry look.

He was shrugging a shirt over his shoulders when the door opened with a sucking sound. He heard Greenberg still, in the front, taking an order, so it couldn't have been him. Slowly, he dragged the shirt down over his torso. His music played over the speakers of the cafe, some soft piano that Lydia claimed would help him focus if he listened to it while studying. It didn't, but it made for good cafe music, and now he was trying to parse out the high and low melodies as he held his breath, waiting.

He didn't have to wait long.

"I think you should have dinner with me tonight," Derek said abruptly, his voice unnaturally loud in the backroom. Stiles allowed himself to turn slowly, smoothing out any wrinkles in the borrowed shirt, as he processed what Derek had said to him.

"Is this like a date?" he managed to say, masking incredulity with a front of sarcasm. Sarcasm was nice. Sarcasm was safe. Derek was staring at him with an intensity that rivaled the hottest day Stiles had ever spent at the beach. He could tell he wasn't being sarcastic in the least.

"Maybe." Derek shrugged, noncommittal. Then he ran a finger along the metal surface next to him, bringing up a thin layer of flour. He looked at his finger and then at Stiles, seeming to come to some conclusion. "Yes," Derek amended with a nod. "It will be, for me."

What was that supposed to mean? Stiles felt his face scrunch up in confusion. He wasn't sure if he should be flattered at being propositioned or offended at it. "And for me?"

Derek shrugged again, taking a step forward into the small room. Even though he was still a few feet away, Stiles felt like he was crowding him, sharing the same breath. "Depends. Are you the kind of guy who has rules about that sort of thing? You know, no sex before the third date." An elegantly lifted eyebrow.

Stiles returned with a bit of his own. "Little late for that, don't you think?"

"That's why we could not call it a date, if you were the kind of guy." His expression was serious but his tone was joking. Stiles felt himself rising to the bait. It reminded him a bit of trading barbs with Isaac, though Isaac had never really quite managed to make Stiles feel the way Derek was making him feel. Maybe a bit like he was about to go cliff diving into the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. Anticipating the thrill and icy shock of water and the adrenaline rush and frenzied come-down.

Oh, this was promising. "Then what would we call it?" Stiles curved his lips up lazily. Derek took a few more steps into the backroom, until Stiles was mirroring him and falling back onto the shelves. They dug into his back while Derek hovered at his front. Derek's grin was predatory. Stiles did nothing to suppress his shiver.

"Oh, I don't know," Derek hummed, his breath ghosting over Stiles' cheek. "A favor?"

Stiles blinked, suddenly detached from the tension. "What?"

Derek reeled him back in easily. He traced a light finger over Stiles jawline and repeated, "A favor."

Another small step and his thigh was separating Stiles' own. His breath shortened, his heart beating in his ears. Derek smelled like the forest, clear and clean and new. He spoke into Stiles' neck, making his lashes flutter against his cheek. "You left me seriously wanting, Stiles, that morning." He nosed along his throat, stubble brushing along the vulnerable skin there. "Had the whole day planned. Breakfast in bed, and then sex in bed, or maybe on the kitchen counter."

He trailed off and Stiles' ears burned, not in embarrassment, but at the thought of Derek's hard body pressed against his, the cool and firm kitchen counter on his back. Like this, only better. Derek smirked, obviously sensing the direction Stiles' thoughts were taking. "You kinda ruined those plans."

"You couldn't have given your right hand some exercise?" Stiles found himself asking, falling back on teasing because of the way Derek made him feel out of his element. Like he was standing at some precipice with Derek at his back.

He pushed Stiles over the edge; he fit both hands over Stiles' hips and _leaned_ into him and pressed his lips against his, and then he nudged with his thigh and Stiles accommodated, let Derek spread his legs open until he was pretty much straddling him in the backroom of the place where he _worked_ , where there were baked goods waiting to be placed on their shelves - god, the health code violations running through Stiles' head - but then Derek's tongue was slipping into his mouth. Stiles brought his arms up and around Derek's neck and held on. Derek scraped his teeth against Stiles' bottom lip. Stiles pushed his hips into Derek's in response.

A groan from Derek's throat. Stiles swallowed it greedily, pushed his tongue into Derek's warm mouth, licked his way past Derek's defenses as the boxes rattled in their shelves when Derek rolled his hips into Stiles' heat. "God, Stiles," Derek was murmuring when he could get his lips away for a few moments. He peppered kisses along Stiles' jaw. Nipped at his throat. Stiles urged him on, tightening his arms around Derek's neck when he mouthed at the sensitive spot under his ear. "The _noises_ you make."

Stiles wasn't aware that he even _made_ noises. But now that Derek had mentioned them, Stiles couldn't help but hear, and he grew warmer at how wanton he realized he sounded. His hitching breath, and his needy sighs, and the way he whimpered at Derek's touch.

He opened his eyes.

And promptly pushed Derek away from himself so quickly that Derek still had his lips pursed and his head tilted when he realized what had happened, and he glared at Stiles.

Greenberg was in the entrance to the backroom, gaping. Stiles covered his face with both hands in mortification. There were other parts of his body he wanted to cover but also didn't want to risk drawing attention to. Greenberg whistled as Derek straightened his tie and turned his body halfway, so he could see their intruder but still had most of his focus on Stiles.

"Cool, man. Cool. Just - the cookies were done baking."

He stepped in and quickly flipped off the oven.

"I can't believe this is my life," Stiles complained through his fingers.

" _I_ can't believe you guys are re-enacting some lame porno from the 70s. Like, seriously, backroom of a cafe? You know that NYU is known for some horrendously epic sex in the library stacks?" Greenberg joked, obviously trying to disperse the awkward atmosphere.

Oh, Stiles knew. There was a particularly hidden and private corner on the fourth floor of the library where he had spent some afternoons as a freshman. But he liked to think those days were behind him. And there was no way he was admitting any of that with Derek in the room with them.

"Why are you _still_ in here?" Stiles asked Greenberg instead, finally taking his hands from his eyes to wave them emphatically at his sides. He made a shooing motion. "Aren't there customers to take care of?"

"What? So you have something else you need to _take care of_ back here?" Greenberg darted his eyes between Derek and Stiles and grinned, smug. "Yes! Good one," he congratulated himself.

"I will never get over how much of an _absolute_ loser you are."

"You sound like your friend Lydia," Greenberg teased. Stiles had no idea why he considered that as anything resembling offensive. His co-worker opened his mouth to speak again, but Derek chose that moment to clear his throat and shoot Greenberg a warning glance.

His jaw clenched shut with an audible snap. "Okay. Leaving. Wow." He backed out of the room with his hands up and a smug smirk on his face.

God, sometimes Stiles hated Greenberg.

But now there was Derek to deal with. Derek, who was close but not close enough to touch anymore. Stiles wasn't sure how to deal with that. The kissing he was fine with. The up-close-in-your-face bantering he had mastered. It was this middle-distance, friendly tension that threw him for a loop.

So did it do the same, it seemed, to Derek, who cleared his throat again, lips curving. It wasn't quite the same as before they were interrupted, and they both knew it. The tension had fizzled, leaving behind something unresolved and hesitant.

"So I'll come by at 9?" Derek hazarded. "For our date?"

Stiles nodded, unable to trust his voice.

Derek took a half-step forward but changed his mind at the last moment. Stiles silently wished he had gone through with whatever it was he was thinking, because then Derek smiled and turned and left, walking out of the backroom and then out of the cafe, bell ringing to signify his absence.

.

The restaurant Derek took him to didn't look twice at the shirt Stiles was wearing proclaiming the name of his work establishment, even though the waiters were wearing all black with silver accents. It was tiny and Italian and dimly lit, and by the time the wine Derek had ordered reached their table, a man with a guitar had taken one corner to serenade the customers with a soothing voice and smooth picking.

"So this is romantic," Stiles said into his wine glass. Derek had ordered a red again, and together they took their first sips.

Derek huffed laughter into his glass, and it echoed inside of it. "Is it?"

"If I were the dramatic type I would remind you that I've already told you I don't like reds, and then I would probably throw it in your face and storm out, fuming."

"And yet you're drinking it."

"Would be rude not to." Stiles shrugged and put the glass down. "And I'm not the dramatic type. I guess it's not that bad."

"I did say I would get you to like it."

Derek smirked. Stiles smirked back. _God_ , he thought to himself. He wanted to launch himself across the table at him. Derek had changed before coming to pick him up at the cafe, now wearing a pair of dark jeans and a fitting v-neck shirt, and his leather jacket that Stiles had first seen him in, and then they had walked the few blocks to this little Italian place that had a list reaching a two-hour wait at the door that sat them down as soon as Derek waved a hand at the hostess. There was a tiny vase of flowers on the table.

"So what's good here?"

Derek tilted his dead. Stiles refused to find it endearing. If only Lydia could see him, now. On a date. The last real date he had been on had ended horribly, Stiles unable to stop running his mouth and his partner unable to physically and mentally be interesting enough to shut him up.

Sex had just been easier. It usually was.

"I like to keep it simple," Derek said. "Their mussels are good. And their Penne alla Vodka."

"Are you going to order for me?" Stiles asked him, half serious, raising up the menu in front of him with both hands.

Derek said, "Would you like me to?" in a rumbling sort of way that made Stiles bite his lower lip.

"Sure," Stiles squeaked, which Derek of course noticed, and his lips quirked into a smile at that.

He ordered for him. When the food came, Stiles told him he simply had to try his dish, and then he lifted a forkful up to Derek's lips for him to bite. Derek reciprocated, eyes flashing when Stiles bared his teeth, after. He refilled Stiles' glass of wine whenever it dipped lower than half-full. They talked about small things: school and work and the crisp but warming weather they were finally having. Spring was coming. By the end of their main course, Stiles was pleasantly buzzing, and not only because of the wine.

Derek had a direct way of speaking, and dry humor, and a skip in his laughter when he found something that Stiles said really funny. They even liked some of the same things; they argued over which of two blockbuster superhero movies released over the holidays had been better, and Stiles found himself spouting facts about comic books and superhero origins that he hadn't spouted to anyone except Scott, and Scott had long ago given up ardent arguing over things such as this with Stiles, ever since Allison had taken up the majority of his brain functioning. Derek, though, was a surprise.

Dessert was a shared tiramisu, and conversation drifted to topics not so small.

"My dad's out in California," Stiles told Derek when he asked about his family. "He's the sheriff of our hometown."

Derek's eyebrows lifted up high on his forehead. Stiles was finding that he could be ridiculously expressive with those features of his face. "California?"

"Yeah, ah, that's where I'm from."

"Get out," Derek said, clanging his fork against the plate that (half of) the tiramisu rested on.

"Um, no?"

"That's where I'm from."

Stiles smiled. "So you're one of the few who will understand my heavy desire for an In-N-Out burger? Because I would do some seriously unmentionable things for one." He started lifting another forkful of dessert to his lips, but then Derek waggled his eyebrows. Stiles laughed and the cake tumbled from his fork and onto the table.

"Oh, foul," he teased. "How unmentionable?"

"I'm not going to mention it," Stiles sing-songed.

Good-naturedly, Derek chose not to pursue. "So your dad's out there. Any brothers or sisters?"

"Not that I know of."

Derek said, "What about your mom?" and the cake in Stiles' mouth turned to ash. He coughed, sputtered, had to cover his mouth with the cloth napkin. Derek filled up his glass of water in alarm and Stiles drank it in large gulps when the coughs subsided. "Okay?"

There was concern in his voice and in his eyes. Stiles sighed. Over the years, thinking about his mom had become easier, as he remembered the good more than the bad. The happy over the sad. But her memory was still laced in guilt and grief, no matter how long it had been. Rationally, he knew he had nothing to do with her death. Irrationally, he believed he could have prevented it if he had been...better.

He couldn't put it into more eloquent words. Lydia called it survivor's guilt. His therapist had said much of the same.

He looked at Derek's open, concerned face. "She's gone," he said stiffly. "Cancer when I was younger. It was just me and my dad for a while."

Derek's mouth was open in a small 'o' of surprise, or understanding, or something else Stiles couldn't recognize. His eyes shifted to the right, and Stiles knew what was coming. What always happened after he told someone what had happened to his mom. The apologies for something that had nothing to do with them. The useless platitudes.

"My family died in a fire."

Stiles' eyes snapped to Derek's face. He was telling the truth. His shoulders heaved like the truth was heavy on them, and he was shaking it off. "Oh," Stiles said.

He realized he was breathing in sync with the heaving of Derek's shoulders. The tiramisu was melting forgotten between them. "Tell me about them," Stiles said, because he knew that sometimes that permission was all that was needed.

"It was just my sister and me for a while, too," Derek explained, eyes dark. "I lost my whole family in one day, except for my uncle Peter and my sister. It was..." he trailed off, uncertain. He had his hands on the table, and Stiles laid his own over one of them. "I guess I just want to say that I understand, is all."

He did. He _could_ understand. How loss was not something felt, but lived.

"Okay." Stiles squeezed Derek's hand in his. "Where's your sister, now?"

Derek looked at where their hands were joined on the table and curved his lips into a smile. "Europe, probably." He chuckled. "Laura's never been easy to keep in one place."

"Laura Hale, huh? That's pretty." He remembered the framed picture he had seen in Derek's room, that one item of personal worth he had discovered, and how beautiful his sister had looked. It wasn't just her appearance; her smile at the camera had seemed bright and endless.

"Yeah, she's pretty amazing."

"My friend Lydia is kind of like that," Stiles began, remembering the tiramisu again. He brought another bite to his mouth. "Amazing."

And just like that, conversation shifted again.

It was easy, with Derek. Frightfully so. It was easy to talk about their families and then about their friends and then about their favorite places in the city. It was easy to have a meal with Derek and share a bottle of wine and then dessert and then an espresso. It was easy to sit in the dimly lit Italian restaurant with a man on a guitar in one corner singing about Venice and to rub an ankle up against Derek's underneath the table, to lift the corners of his lips into a grin at Derek's returning gesture. It was easy, it was easy, it was easy.

Or maybe Stiles was easy.

.

They left a trail of clothes to Derek's bedroom, cliched and hurried and desperate for each other's skin, warm from the wine and flushed from the conversation. Jackets lay by the entrance as Derek kicked his front door shut. Stiles' Common Gounds shirt ended up on the coffee table, and Derek's v-neck over the couch. Belts were discarded next, and Derek fumbled with his, hands fluttering between his belt buckle and Stiles' arms and neck and shoulders, before Stiles did it for him, looped the leather around the back of Derek's neck once, laughing against his lips, before tossing it behind him into the bedroom.

Derek walked him until the backs of his knees hit the mattress, and a gentle shove had Stiles sprawled on Derek's bed. He brought himself up to his elbows and pushed himself back until he was fully on the covers, breathing heavy, watching Derek's eyes grow dark and half-lidded. Derek _snarled_.

It shouldn't have made Stiles' cock twitch the way it did, the danger and roughness a noise like that indicated, but it did. And then Derek was sliding out of his jeans. He kicked them away from him and crawled onto the bed above Stiles, hands on either side of his hips.

Stiles held his breath, eyes flickering between his hips and Derek's lips, which were parted and shiny with spit. _Stiles'_ spit, he realized. Derek pressed his nails against Stiles' skin, and then he dragged his jeans down and down - Stiles lifted his hips for him - and then they were off.

Derek still hovered above him, placing kisses on seemingly random parts of Stiles' body until he was going crazy with frustration and need, as his strong arms kept him pinned to the bed. First, lips pressed against his shoulder, then just above his navel, then low over his pelvic bone, then on the inside of his thigh, where the bruise Derek had left before had already faded completely. "Derek," Stiles whined, thrusting his hips into the air. "Are you gonna get on this, or what?"

Derek's breath ghosted over the inside of Stiles thigh, and he realized he was chuckling. He licked the spot and Stiles inhaled, and then there was a press of teeth there, and Stiles clenched his fists against the mattress. "Like that?" Derek asked casually, like he was asking about the weather.

"Get up here," Stiles gritted out, and finally they were kissing again, Derek's body a hard line against his own, his weight settled atop him. Stiles put his heels on the mattress and opened his knees a little, so that Derek could slide between them, and then he was heavy pressure and heat and _wonderful_ , hips pressing him down so that when Stiles thrust up, his body responded with a shock of arousal. Then Derek was working a hand between them, and Stiles whined when that hand wrapped around him, dragged his palm upward and rubbed his thumb along the wet tip.

"Stiles, I want to--" Derek began, but Stiles was already nodding, complacent and eager. He was up for anything.

Sex always made him a mewling, pliant thing.

So Derek wrapped his hand tighter around him, and began to stroke. On the upstroke Stiles gasped, when he realized that Derek had taken himself in his own hand, too, so that they were rubbing against each other with every stroke. Derek's hand was soft and wet and warm, and his cock was hard against Stiles', and Stiles' knees were splayed open and he was leaking, breath stuttering, muttering curses and praises into Derek's ear, Derek's stubble grazing against the same spot on his collarbone every time he stroked. "Please," Stiles breathed. "Fingers - I need - oh, god, Derek. I need your fingers, or _you_ , or, fuck, _anything_."

Derek's hand slipped, and they both groaned at the loss of friction. "You're _filthy_ ," Derek whispered against his skin. "Keep talking."

Stiles complied. He heard the drawer by the bed open and close, and then the snick of a bottle opening. "Your fingers, Derek. Last time, you opened me up so good. Your fingers inside, and then--" A sharp inhale as Derek nudged a finger inside of him, warm and wet with lube.

"And then?" Derek encouraged.

"And then, you filled me up, just like you said." Derek's eyes were glazed as he watched Stiles underneath him, and Stiles realized he liked hearing him talk, like the noise and rambling. "With your big, beautiful cock," he whispered, just to see what it would do to Derek.

Derek pressed his lips against Stiles', bruising and biting; he growled, and Derek's finger inside of him curled, and Stiles twitched at the sudden flare of sensation. "God, Derek. How many fingers you think your dick is?"

Stiles closed his eyes when Derek laid a hand flat on his stomach, and then he felt another slip in alongside the first. God, at this rate, he was going to die before he had Derek's cock inside of him. He said the same aloud.

"Oh, you want to go faster?" Derek asked, smirking despite how concentrated he looked. He scissored his fingers as he dragged them out, and Stiles whimpered.

"Yeah, oh god, yeah."

Faster meant that eons later, Derek was lining up the head of his cock with Stiles' open, wet hole, and pushing in with a long groan. Stiles' knees were beginning to hurt. He squeezed around Derek's cock when he was fully seated, enjoying watching Derek's eyes roll back as his eyelids fluttered.

"Now," Stiles demanded, wrapping his legs around Derek. " _Move,_ or so help me god--"

Derek rolled his hips forward experimentally and Stiles wanted to cry out of frustration. His dick was leaking onto his stomach and Derek was being _so careful._

"Like you fucking mean it," he growled at Derek, tightening the grip his legs had around the older man. Derek pulled out until Stiles could feel the fat head of his cock at the tight ring of muscle, and just as he was going to growl again, Derek snapped his hips forward, and the growl was lost to a high, keening noise that Stiles didn't think he had ever made before.

"Like that?" Derek asked. The smug bastard. He was shaking from holding himself still, and panting from it.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Stiles repeated when he came down from his grey-out high at the quick move. "Again, do it again."

Derek snapped his hips forward again, and Stiles barely managed to stop from making that noise. He set a pace that quickly had Stiles writhing against the mattress, mouth wet and open and breath stuttering every time Derek thrust. The slick slide of Derek's cock inside him building him up, sending white-noise to his brain.

Then Derek shifted, taking Stiles' body with him, pulling one of Stiles' legs over his shoulder and turning him slightly onto the side, and when Derek thrust into him again, Stiles saw stars. He thrust again and that was it - he wrapped a hand around himself and pulled in time with Derek's thrusts, and then he was shouting into the covers, body clenching tight around Derek.

And Derek - fucked him right through it, pushing into Stiles' tight, shuddering heat, and he followed Stiles over the edge moments later, coming with a groan that seemed ripped from him, before he collapsed between the v of Stiles' legs.

Later, they fell asleep on Derek's couch in the living room, bed too soiled to sleep on, Stiles held against Derek's chest on the narrow cushions.

.


	4. Chapter 4

Lydia bought tickets for LA and would leave in a few weeks. Stiles worked at the cafe, went to classes, fell asleep on Scott and Allison's couch more often that he would like to admit. He drank too much coffee and got highlighter-yellow all over his hands. He ordered take-out and went out for drinks and forgot about a five-page paper he had to write for this one class, but it was okay. He drank more coffee. Lydia reminded him that curly fries did not a meal make.

Sometimes, he and Derek had dinner. And then sometimes they would sleep together and, the morning after, when Derek's apartment smelled like freshly brewed coffee and Derek was reading the paper with Stiles curled up against his chest, Stiles would feel an itch he just couldn't scratch, an annoying twinge in his gut that told him good things never lasted.

Sometimes, he slept with Isaac.

Isaac wasn't a good thing. Not really.

.

Lydia left for Los Angeles, glowing with excitement and anticipation. She had one carry-on filled halfway with shoes and her purse and a suitcase to check-in, and a promise from Danny that she would love it there. Stiles went with her to JFK, and in the cab to the airport, Lydia was strangely silent, though still noticeably thrumming with energy. She had tied her hair up into a loose ponytail, like she was preparing for a session at the gym, or settling down for a binge of legal research.

"This is crazy," she said finally, once they had reached her terminal. "Right? You said it wasn't, but it totally is. This is like, movie-romance heroine crazy."

"It's a little crazy," Stiles acknowledged, bumping her shoulder with his. They were standing outside of the automatic doors, car doors opening and closing behind them. "But he'd be crazy to turn you away again."

They both knew he was talking about Jackson. Lydia looked up at Stiles, primly balanced on her high-heeled boots and wearing perfect lip color. "When I come back," she said, reaching out to take his hand. They were small in his, and suddenly he felt fiercely protective of her. He always had, really. "When I come back, we're celebrating. No matter what happens while I'm there. Okay?"

She smiled, timid but sure, and nothing Lydia had ever done was timid that Stiles could remember, so he pulled her close and crushed her in a hug, and she hugged him back just as boldly. "I wish you were coming with me," she confessed when she released him.

"It's only a week and a half," he reminded her.

"When did I fall so far that a week without Stiles sounds like misery to me?" Lydia laughed, a familiar ringing sound. Her timid smile was gone, replaced by a dazzling flash of her teeth. She hefted her purse higher up onto her shoulder and shifted her carry-on suitcase. "How long do you think it will take for someone to offer to help me with my bags?"

Stiles looked up at the sky, feigning consideration. "Fifteen minutes from now. While you're in the security line," he bet.

Lydia hummed. "You're on."

He got a text while he was on the AirTrain back to the subway stations that would take him to the city.

_11 min in security. He said he's going to carry my bags to my gate, too. :)_

.

Dinner on Wednesday was Thai delivery from the place a couple of blocks away from Derek's, and they nestled together on Derek's couch watching HBO's latest full series.

"The vampire did it," Stiles said around a mouthful of spicy basil noodles.

Derek had ordered a Pad Thai, which was pretty much the blandest dish on the menu. Their thighs were pressing against each other through their sweatpants, as they both hunched over their food. There were a few bottles of beer on the table, some empty, and the remote was lost somewhere in the cushions.

"It was _not_ the vampire," Derek argued. "Definitely the werewolf."

"Dude!" Stiles waved around his chopsticks, dangerously close to poking out Derek's eyes. Derek swerved back to avoid being speared, and rolled his eyes at Stiles' excited flail. "The werewolf has a good alibi. The vampire was obviously lurking, okay?"

"The vampire's too obvious," Derek persisted. "You know there's always that House moment - that twist. And stop calling me 'dude.'"

"Unless the twist is that there _isn't_ a twist." He poked Derek in the side; he had found a tender area in his obliques that were sensitive to tickling. Just as he thought, Derek buckled over into Stiles' lap, his own chopsticks clattering to the table.

"You ass."

Stiles used that moment to wave some of his food in front of Derek's face. "Open up! Try this. It will literally blow your mind. How can you keep ordering Pad Thai from a Thai restaurant? That's like ordering chicken fingers at a country club."

"How is that even an analogy?" Derek managed, before Stiles shoved the spicy food between his lips. He made exaggerated chewing motions before swallowing and making a face. "I don't like spicy food."

Stiles felt his eyes widening at the thought. "What? How? It's _so_ good."

"I just don't like it," Derek insisted, sitting up again. He rummaged through the bag their delivery came in to fish out a plastic fork, tossing the discarded chopsticks into the bag in its place.

"We can never speak again," Stiles whispered dramatically. "This isn't going to work." He laughed at the expression on Derek's face - part confusion and worry and determination. When the laughter died away, he realized Derek had been silent, and staring, and tight-lipped. "What?" he asked him, feeling the tension Derek was emanating.

Derek sighed; his shoulders moved up and down. He put the fork down again, and turned to face Stiles on the couch. "You think this isn't going to work?"

The credits rolled on the screen. It had been the werewolf, after all.

Stiles swallowed. "I was just kidding." He took another huge bite of his spicy noodles and took his time chewing.

"What if I'm not?"

He nearly choked on his food, spice going down the wrong tube. Derek sat patiently, breathing steadily through his nostrils. Stiles stared, eyes watering. "I'm serious," he said again, unnecessarily.

And Stiles -

Stiles panicked.

"About _what_?" he asked, voice thin and high. He could feel his heart thrumming in his ears, wondered if Derek could see the rapid pulse at his neck.

"About this. About _us_." Derek's mouth opened and closed a few times, but no other words came out. He clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and finally said, "I want you to stop sleeping with other people."

" _Excuse_ me?" He wanted to be angry about the demand, but his mind fixated on Derek's words, and they repeated rapidly in his head. _I want you to stop sleeping with other people. Stop sleeping with other people._

Derek made it sound so easy.

"I want us to be exclusive," Derek said, sincerity in every molecule of his being. He was leaning forward a little bit, so that Stiles could see the green and blue flecks in his irises.

"And what about what I want?" Stiles demanded, feeling anger rising up inside of him belatedly. But Derek made a sad, lost noise, and the anger deflated immediately.

He said, "We can try it your way. I'm okay with that. But eventually I'm going to ask this question again, and if you say no a second time…" He trailed off. Didn't have to finish. "I don't like giving ultimatums. That's more my uncle's thing."

"Can we not talk about your creepy uncle?"

"Can you answer my question?" Derek shot back.

Stiles shrank away from him, surprised at the sudden flare of _emotion._ He was holding his chopsticks in a white-knuckled grip in front of him, and they were shaking. He slammed the betraying utensils onto the table and faced Derek, who looked apologetic and sheepish.

"Sorry, I just." Derek turned, looked down into his own lap, pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and wretched and defeated. "I'm not up for this being casual, Stiles. What do you want to do?"

He had wanted more but hadn't known how to ask for it, and now here Derek was, offering it to him, but Stiles couldn't think, or he thought too much.

A relationship was difficult. A relationship was more than sharing a bed; it was sharing mornings, and it was sharing thoughts and arguing about them and making up after. It was letting someone burrow into your hollows to fill them up. Stiles wasn't sure he wanted anyone else privy to his innermost thoughts and feelings, felt certainly that he was so full of holes that nothing could fill him up again. He was a mess and he was going to cause a mess, inevitably. Somewhere, someone was going to get hurt, and he had done enough hurting for a lifetime.

"I don't know," he said truthfully, placing a hand between Derek's shoulder blades and wincing when Derek sighed into the touch. "I can't tell you right now."

"Okay," Derek said. "Okay." He turned into Stiles' hand and pressed himself along Stiles' body, until they were both laying flat on top of the cushions, Derek heavy and hot above him. Stiles shifted up and kissed the tip of Derek's nose.

That night they had sex on the couch, and it was unhurried, slow and languid.

.

Derek didn't ask him about it again, patient and understanding and _so fucking perfect_ , and it was the not asking that was driving Stiles slowly to the ground.

.

He wanted to call Lydia, but denied himself. Lydia was dealing with her own problems.

And Scott was like a particularly thick-headed brother to him. He loved him but also couldn't imagine talking about Derek with him. It wasn't the same as talking about Lydia together, back when they were idiots in middle school and high school. Derek wasn't a Lydia, and Scott would never be able to understand the appeal.

So he told Isaac in fits and starts on a Friday that the other had been called in to cover for Greenberg, feeling lighter after the whole story came out somewhat coherently. Isaac said, "Wow, fuck that," about Derek's desire, and then:

"What, he wants you to like settle down with him? You're in college," like that was a valid argument.

It wasn't.

Stiles shrugged. Went back to wiping down one of the long tables near the back. There was a lull in customers, save for a group of four near the front, sitting in a sunbeam and looking over a map of New York City. Stiles wondered how long they would examine the map before realizing they were looking at Brooklyn and not at Manhattan.

"You know what you should do?" Isaac started from his place at the register. He leaned back against the counter on his elbows, facing Stiles with a wicked glint in his eyes. "You should come to this party with me tonight. It'll be great - it's at this guy's house in Jersey. Have some fun, forget about Derek for a while."

He smiled easily. Everything about Isaac was easy, after the initial struggle to breach his walls. Stiles was similar; he knew that.

And a party would be good. With Lydia out of the apartment, Queens had been too silent and too far. He felt like he was trekking out to Alcatraz every time he went home. Derek was a pleasant throb in his chest but his words were like a heartburn that just wouldn't go away. When he was alone it was all he could think about, being with him and wanting to be with him and hurting him and not wanting to hurt him. He needed to be around people.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed. Then he realized that Isaac had said the party would be in Jersey. "Can I stay over, after?"

Isaac grinned again. Someone swung through their door and made the bell chime. "We'll see," he said.

.

His phone buzzed in his pocket late into his shift.

Derek wrote, _dinner?_ and Stiles was probably imagining it, but there was a lot of hope riding in that one word.

_sorry. going to a party with isaac_ , he sent back, feeling detached.

Derek didn't respond for a while, and when he did, it was with a simple, _next time then_ , that made Stiles want to crush his phone, agonizing over what this ambivalence meant, wondering when Derek would just be done with it and frustrated with him and shuck him to the curb.

.


	5. Chapter 5

Music vibrated the walls of the house on a street full of empty houses. There was only one place with the lights on. Everyone was at the party.

Red solo cups were scattered like land mines on the front lawn, and there was a huge trampoline taking up half of the lawn, the grass underneath it yellow even in the garish light coming from the first floor. There were a few groups scattered outside, and a couple who had taken over the trampoline.

"You didn't tell me this was a frat party," Stiles complained when they were about halfway down the block to the house, the happy yells and garbled conversation of drunken college students growing louder.

"Problem?" Isaac grinned. Erica was walking beside him, looking vampish in leather and black leggings and red lipstick.

She said, "It's Boyd's frat," licking the corner of her mouth. Stiles wondered how much of Erica was calculated seduction and sultry magnetism. She didn't seem to be trying too hard. "And, hello? Free drinks!"

"Yeah, if you like shitty Coors."

"Beggars can't be choosers," Isaac sang.

"I'm not begging," Stiles protested, thinking about why he was really here. To avoid thinking about Derek. And yet here he was, suddenly thinking about Derek. He wondered what he was doing, if Derek wondered what Stiles was doing, or if he was telling himself not to care, like Stiles was telling himself.

No, Derek didn't strike him as the type. He carried with him an intensity that came out through his eyes, which Stiles had been drawn to at first. Was still drawn to, he admitted to himself.

He was frightened of that intensity, Stiles realized. Frightened of that intensity and what it meant.

And now here he was at this frat party in Jersey, and at the door the music was throbbing in his ears, heavy and bass-driven. The lights were all on in the house. Some of the hardwood floor was already shiny with suspicious liquids. Erica stepped up to the pledge brother who was taking names at the door and purred their connection to the House, and they stepped through.

Inside, it seemed that the entire Greek population of Rutgers University, the row to which these Houses belonged, was stuffed inside. It was warm and humid and smelled of beer. A Brother immediately saw Erica and shouted a greeting.

"Reyes!" he cried, overly happy and red-faced. He was wearing sunglasses indoors. He pushed his way through the crowd of bodies to where they were standing by the front door, wobbling a bit when he reached her and giving her a tight hug. "Boyd's in the back killing all of us with his pong skills. Erica, Erica - you have to come back and distract him. Please. For the love of god." He looked like he was about to get down on his knees and beg, but Erica stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Only if we play winner, Alex," she bargained. And she pulled on Stiles' hand to tug him to her side. Isaac smirked when Stiles looked back at him.

Oh, Stiles thought. Isaac had told Erica, and now they were on Operation: Get Stiles Smashed.

"Deal!" the guy - Alex - yelled, excitable. He pecked Erica on the cheek and she gave him a shove in return. Then he was leading them back and back and back, out through the kitchen door and onto the back porch, where they had set up a long table with Solo cups stacked on either end like bowling pins. Boyd was to their left, where the cups in front of him were still pretty much in a perfect triangle formation, one arm up and about to shoot the little ping-pong ball he had in one hand into one of the cups in front of his opponents. At the other end of the table was a red-haired kid who was chugging down one of his few remaining beers. A crowd had surrounded them, and they were cheering and jeering. Someone had brought a set of speakers outside and connected their iPod to it, and music played out here, too.

"Sean!" Alex shouted, and the red-haired kid choked on his beer. "Look who came in." He patted Erica on the back and Erica grinned.

Sean finished chugging his beer and slammed the cup back onto the table, wiping his mouth with the bottom of his t-shirt. "Oh, thank god," he slurred, after looking at Erica. "Please help."

Boyd was hyper-focused. He aimed and let the ball go and it sank into one of Sean's Solo cups without even touching the rim.

"Wow," Erica said. "You guys are going to die."

"Erica! Not helpful!" Alex walked forward and took the cup that had the ball in it, pulled out the little white globe, and threw back the rest of the cup's contents into his mouth.

"I think I want to play Boyd," Erica said next, smirking again.

Alex and Sean both sank, elbows on the table and their heads hanging. "We're doomed," Sean wailed.

Boyd was a single man team, and since he had scored a double on his last turn, the rules stated that it was now his turn again. He finished the game on his next throws. He had only lost three cups. Alex and Sean manfully drank their cups, and then took turns drinking the remaining ones in front of Boyd, too. By the time they were done, they had gained their own circle of cheerers and had to stumble back into the house for a break.

Erica smoothly slid into place in front of the table, dragging Stiles with her. A few brothers had gathered around to help with setting up the game again, while Erica examined her nails and Stiles fidgeted. He was unquestionably horrible at beer-pong.

"I should let you know that I am _so_ bad at this. Like, embarrassingly bad," he confessed to Erica, who simply patted him on the cheek and said, "Don't worry about it," while never taking her eyes off of Boyd.

Boyd was big and broad-shouldered and smooth-skinned. When he smiled, his teeth glinted. Stiles could see the appeal. "Stiles," Boyd greeted, nodding. "Erica."

"Boyfriend," Erica greeted in response. Boyd's mouth turned up at the corners. Stiles looked between them and resigned himself to his fate.

.

Boyd was absolutely wiping the floor with them. Erica could hold her own, but they had one cup left in front of them and five left in front of Boyd and Stiles swears that someone had put rum in one of the cups instead of beer, which he had thrown back like a shot, or maybe one of the brothers had given him a shot when he offered to drink Erica's beer for her, or maybe both had happened, and he was pretty sure this was their second or third game.

Isaac had long-since disappeared back into the house with some others, and Stiles wasn't expecting to see him again any time soon. Erica draped herself drunkenly over his shoulders, leaning against the table for support, and slurred, "C'mon, Boyd. Gimme your best shot!"

On 'shot,' Boyd launched the ball in his hands, and it sank into the cup in front of them.

"Whoops." Erica giggled. "Oh, looks like we'll have to finish that." She gestured broadly at the remaining cups on the table. Stiles groaned. As he reached for the first of them, he thought he saw a familiar shape in the corner of his vision. He swiveled his head in that direction, and beer sloshed all down his front, some of it splashing Erica, who cried out in indignation. "These are new!" she shrieked, pointing at her shoes.

Stiles said, "Did you - was that -- ?" He glanced around the entire back yard but didn't see the familiar shape again. Great, now he was even hallucinating Derek. And now that he was thinking about him, he wondered again what Derek was doing instead of having dinner with him and taking him back to his apartment and dragging Stiles in close for a kiss --

Erica said, "Race you," and put another Solo cup into his hands.

.

There was a boy who looked familiar. Blonde hair and blue eyes and crooked grin. Clean-shaven. Stiles blinked and saw how he was Derek's negative, Derek's opposite. They were in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge for something to mix with the vodka.

"Alex," Stiles remembered, out loud.

Alex pulled out a Sunny D that had been packed into the very back of the shelves. He opened it with a grunt and twist and poured some of the orange juice into Stiles' cup, which he had been holding out. Stiles blinked and Alex split in two.

"Yeah. Stiles, right?"

They knocked their cups together when they were full and drank. Alex's eyes were bluer than Isaac's and flickering as the liquid slid down his throat.

.

Sometime during the night Stiles got it in his head that he wanted to talk to Derek, so he pulled out his phone and called, hanging over the back of one of the couches in the huge living room and trying to hold down the alcohol that was threatening to resurface. He wanted to tell Derek how boring he found this party, how he would much rather be watching reality TV with him over Chinese take-out on Derek's stupid fancy couch and digging his feet under Derek's thighs. Was that wrong?

It was nearing three in the morning.

Derek didn't answer.

.

Alex said, "Hey, you don't look so hot."

Alex said, "You wanna lie down or something?"

Alex said, "My room's upstairs."

Stiles nodded. His body was jello. Alex took him upstairs.

.

Alex's skin was as hot as Derek's, saltier on his tongue, or maybe that was just the alcohol, and Stiles was tired and drunk and hazy, soft around his edges. Alex's cock was heavy in his mouth, firm on the flat of his tongue. He let his jaw fall slack when Alex put his fingers in Stiles' hair, and tugged.

He wasn't being careful. The head of his cock nudged Stiles' throat, and Stiles gagged. Alex let go and Stiles pulled off, a thread of saliva connecting his lips to Alex. "Sorry," the blonde mumbled. "God you're just, like, really good at this."

"It's okay," Stiles assured him, used a hand to rub spit over his length. "It's okay. I like it. I like all of it."

Alex hissed at the pressure. Or at his words. Maybe both.

Stiles fit his mouth over Alex's cock again, and this time Alex thrust up slower, careful.

Sex was like this for Stiles: two bodies coming together and a puzzle Stiles had to figure out. What was good for them? What was Stiles good at? Stiles wanted to figure out their secrets, what made their toes curl and their vision white out, and could he do it?

Sex was a suspension of time, and a suspension of thought. There was nothing but this body for him to tease and play with, and to be teased and played with in return.

He thought of Derek - suddenly, _again_ \- and then he thought maybe Derek was different.

But Alex was under him now, thrusting up into Stiles' mouth, hands clenching like he wanted something to grab on to. He pulled off with a wet slurping sound, licked his lips, rasped, "You can pull my hair," and Alex thrust up so suddenly his dick left a trail of spit along Stiles' cheek and jaw.

He probably wanted to fuck Stiles, and Stiles was going to let him.

.

He woke up, feeling like someone had been feeding him sand all night and then left him to be dried out by the sun on the beach. He ran his tongue over his teeth and grimaced at the gritty film he found there. He would give his left nut for a toothbrush. Derek probably had an extra in his cupboards, Stiles thought to himself. He could just take one for himself.

But then he opened his eyes.

The mattress should have been his first clue. It wasn't soft and absorbent, but rather unforgiving. He was pretty sure there was a broken spring digging into his lower back. Or maybe that was -

He chanced a glance behind him, where there was a warm body sprawled across half the bed. His eyes darted down to the man's crotch, and he sighed relief he hadn't realized he had wanted when he saw no eager morning after to take care of. The guy was blonde, and attractive if you were into frat boys, which apparently Stiles was into last night, but Stiles looked at his face, at his slightly parted mouth and his eyes moving behind his eyelids, and felt nothing.

He sat up, suddenly hot under the covers. He pushed them away until they bunched against the other man's side. He didn't stir.

Stiles felt _nothing._

He had woken up and thought he was at Derek's, at first. He had _wanted_ to be at Derek's, but instead he was here, in some shitty frat house with some guy who just was going to graduate college and still put up posters on the wall to cover up holes and bad paint jobs. Stiles' teeth were grimy, and his fingers were sticky, and his contacts that he had slept in were shifting every time he blinked.

Stiles looked at the face of the guy he was in bed with again, and this time he felt something dark unfurling its tendrils from some place deep inside him, and he wasn't sure if it was anger or sadness or confusion. All he knew was that he had to get out.

That dark thing chased him as he gathered up his clothes, grew as he fumbled with the button on his jeans, hovered with every step he took to get outside.

Outside, it was even worse. The sun was bright and white and glaring, and he was standing in some subdivision where all the houses looked the same and all the roads connected with each other. He slid his hand into his back pocket and realized he had had left his phone in the house. He took one backwards look at the imposing structure and felt disgust roil so quickly in his stomach that he heaved, managing not to bring anything up, but he decided not to go back for it.

So he walked, until the houses gave way to empty bars and corner gas stations and mini-marts. Everything looked the same. Everything was different.

His knees gave out at a bus stop, and he collapsed heavily onto the curb and felt like the world was crushing his lungs. He thought about his mother. He thought about his father, alone. He thought about Derek and Derek's family and Derek's sister and his uncle. He thought about how perfect Allison and Scott were for each other. He thought about how sad Lydia was still that Jackson hadn't loved her enough to drag her through the mud with him. He thought about Isaac's walls and Erica's red lipstick and Boyd's gleaming smile. He thought about all the people he had shared his most intimate moments with and how he couldn't even remember their _faces_ , let alone their names. He thought about how he was never getting any of those moments back.

He didn't even realize he was crying until he was gasping for air and there was wetness rolling down his cheeks, and his heart was hammering in his chest and it was _painful_ , how quickly it was beating, how hard it worked to keep him in this crap existence, the unfairness of it all. Then he wasn't sure if he was crying because of his thoughts or crying because of the pain or just fucking _crying_ , but the tears wouldn't stop and he couldn't get air into his lungs. He wished he were home. He wished Lydia had her arms wrapped around him like she always did when this happened, until it passed. He wished he could tell Derek he might be falling in love with him, and was terrified of this desire to do so.

"Can I call someone for you?" came a voice to his right. Stiles had curled in upon himself, his knees drawn up and his arms locked around them, his face tucked into the safe space he had created. He shook his head.

"Are you sure?" came the voice again, sweet and motherly. Stiles looked up and saw an older woman holding out a packet of tissues. "Are you in trouble?" she asked him. "I was - I was just going to wait for the bus, too."

"I'm not in trouble," Stiles told her, voice wrecked. "But can I use your phone?"

The lady nodded and began to dig through her shoulder bag, producing a phone and handing it to Stiles. Then she sat down on the curb next to him and turned her face away. Out of respect for his privacy, Stiles realized.

It was Saturday, but he took a chance, thought Derek would be there, dialed 411 and asked for Pearson Hardman. He was put through a secretary, and finally transferred to Derek. He chewed the inside of his cheek waiting for the other end to pick up. Finally, Derek did.

"Stiles?" Derek asked, voice tinny, confusion making it higher than normal. His voice brought a fresh wave of tears to Stiles' eyes, and a pressure around his heart that was difficult to talk around. Of course Derek would be at work on a Saturday. And Stiles knew that he would be. All the little things you could know about another person and he knew about Derek, hadn't ever been to his office but could still picture him there, laptop to the side and stacks of briefs and reports in neat piles around his desk.

" _Derek_ ," he managed to rasp, and instantly the voice on the other end changed.

"Stiles," Derek said, more firmly this time. "Stiles, what's wrong? Where are you?"

"Derek," Stiles said again desperately, past the lump in his throat. "Derek, I'm sorry - I messed up. I called you and you didn't answer. I thought - oh, my god, I'm sorry, Derek. Derek, Derek, Derek." He was babbling. He was saying Derek's name over and over again, and apologizing. He didn't know what else to do, and Derek was saying something, too, something that he should have been focusing on.

"What's happening, Stiles? I'm sorry I missed your call. I wasn't - there was an emergency at the office so I've been here all night. Where are you? _Where are you?_ "

The woman next to him nudged Stiles gently on the shoulder. She pointed at the bus stop sign when he looked at her. "Hoboken," he read. "Clinton Street at 6th."

"Okay," Derek said. "Okay. Stay right there, Stiles. I'm coming to get you. You hear me? Is there someone there with you? Stay right there."

Stiles looked at the woman next to him again. "Yeah, there's someone here with me."

Derek breathed into the phone. "Can you put that person on?" he asked Stiles.

It was her phone, anyway. Stiles handed it back to her and mumbled, "He wants to talk to you."

The woman's eyes widened, bewildered, but she accepted the phone and brought it up to her ear. Then Derek's voice was an echo in the distance, and the woman was nodding. "That won't be necessary," she said into the receiver. She nodded some more. Then, she hung up. "Stiles?" she began hesitantly.

He didn't want to think about how she knew his name. He was exhausted. He put his hands over his ears and tucked his face into his knees again, but the woman continued. "I'm Amelia, okay Stiles? I'm just going to wait with you until your friend gets here, okay?"

Stiles nodded, tensing when he felt fingers on his shoulder. Amelia backed off. "Hey, hey," she assured him. "Okay, it's okay."

He closed his eyes and kept seeing his mother's face.

An eternity later, or maybe it was just a little under an hour - two buses had come and gone, and the woman had stayed - there was a black sedan pulling up to the curb, and the car door opening, and someone falling to his knees in front of Stiles, who was still in the same position as before, curled into himself. "Stiles," he heard that someone breathe, and then there were fingers in his hair, and Stiles dared himself to look up.

Derek was there. Derek was on his knees in his immaculate suit and getting gravel and dust all over the fabric. Derek had his fingers in Stiles' hair and then both hands cupped around Stiles' face. He pressed their foreheads together. Derek was breathing hard.

Stiles let his arms relax, though it was difficult; he had been sitting rigid for so long. Then his legs. His knees fell open enough that Derek could fit himself between them.

The car was stalling and spitting out fumes. Stiles breathed in the smell of exhaust and cedar and pine and clutched at the silky front of Derek's shirt, dry-eyed. "Please take me home," he begged Derek, nosing into his neck. He rubbed his cheek along Derek's stubble. "Please, please, please."

Vaguely, he was aware of Derek trying to give Amelia something from his pocket, but Amelia refused, so Derek gave her a business card, instead. "If you ever need anything," Derek murmured into Stiles' hair, and he wasn't sure if he was talking to Amelia or to Stiles, but his voice sent shivers down his spine, and he let himself be hauled up by Derek's arms, pressed to Derek's side. The backseat of the car was warm and smelled of leather. Derek told the driver to bring them back to his apartment. He fell asleep to the steady rock and purr of the car, Derek's arm firm around his shoulders.

.

It was dark when Stiles woke up. He was curled up on a familiar mattress with familiar sheets smooth against his calves and familiar covers wrapped around him like a cocoon. It smelled like cedar and pine and lavender.

It was too much.

He sobbed like it was wrenched out of him, and everything hurt, but then Derek's hands were rubbing along his sides, pulling at Stiles' stiff body until Derek could hold him within the circle of his arms. He pulled the covers over them both and Stiles' burrowed into him, needing the warmth and the pressure and the hardness of Derek's body while he thought of everything and nothing, of Amelia by the bus stop, of a glass of red wine at a bar, of dancing lights and glittering skin. It was like his mind had been boarded up with his thoughts before, safely contained behind this makeshift barrier, but someone had taken a hammer and smashed the boards, and his insides poured out and wouldn't stop pouring.

"I don't know why I'm so messed up," he whispered wretchedly into Derek's chest. He could hear Derek's heartbeat, slow and steady and safe. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Derek murmured into his hair. He held on a little tighter, and Stiles felt him place a kiss against his forehead. "There's nothing wrong with you."

.

The weekend passed and bled into Monday. Lydia had called and asked him to come home, having touched down in New York City that morning, but Derek's bed was an island, and whenever he stepped off it he started drowning again. Derek understood this. He kept the lights off whenever he could, and closed the blinds during the day. He had passed along his phone with Lydia on it still to Derek, who returned with it a half-hour, or hours, or days later. Time didn't make sense to him.

His dad called, too, his tinny voice like an anchor. No, he didn't need him to come to New York. No, he wasn't going to do anything drastic. Yes, he would be fine. Yes, there was someone there. "Who?" his father demanded. "Lydia?"

"Derek," Stiles whispered.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Who's Derek?"

"He's my," Stiles began, but didn't know how to end. His mouth worked but no words came out. How could he begin to tell his father about Derek? He knew who Derek was to him, now. But he couldn't be sure who he was to Derek.

"Hey, hey," his dad soothed. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me now. Why don't you put Derek on the phone?" An order masked as a suggestion. Derek had asked him to do the same, before, with that lady in Jersey.

He gave his phone to Derek and heard his dad ask, "How bad is it?" but Derek walked out and closed the door before Stiles could hear his answer.

Derek's patience seemed limitless. He coaxed Stiles into the bathroom and climbed into the shower with him and kept the soap out of his eyes. He cut up an apple and made sure Stiles ate it while he streamed the day's news for them from his laptop. He threaded his fingers through Stiles' hair when he needed it and stayed out of the room when it was too much. On Tuesday, Derek told him that he had contacted the professor Stiles worked with, and Common Grounds, and that he wouldn't have to go back until he was ready. He was standing by the door to his own bedroom, equally ready to leave or stay, depending on what Stiles wanted.

Stiles swallowed around the lump in his throat. It felt like it was never going to go away. "How are you so good at this?" he asked. His voice was scratchy, even though Derek made him drink water a couple of times a day.

Derek stayed. He climbed slowly into one side of the bed, propping himself up on one elbow so that he could look down at Stiles, facing each other. "My sister," he said distantly. His shuddered before he collected himself. "After my family died in the fire, my sister...grieved. Like this." He pressed a kiss to Stiles' shoulder.

Stiles imagined Derek's beautiful sister languishing in dim light like he was, unable to leave the bed because she was burdened and jailed by her own traitorous mind, and thought again of how unfair it all was. But she had been with Derek through it all, he remembered. So maybe it hadn't been so horrible. "She was lucky to have you," Stiles said, and Derek smiled.

The smile brought an unexpected jolt to Stiles' heart. He used the adrenaline that came with it to bring them closer together, until he was curled into the protective comma shape of Derek's body. He knew what he wanted.

He hoped Derek still wanted it, too.

"So do you wanna be my boyfriend?" he chanced, trying to muster up his usual sarcasm and dry delivery, but falling short. He sounded sincere, but maybe that wasn't a bad thing. His heart thundered as he waited for an answer.

Derek's thumb ghosted over the sensitive thin skin under Stiles' eyes, and then fingers were nudging Stiles' chin up until his eyes met Derek's. He could see himself in the hazel irises; his lips were slightly parted, and he was pale and shadowed and his hair was wild. Derek kissed him, and when he pulled away he rubbed his thumb along Stiles' bottom lip, intensity in his features. "Yeah."

That single word was full of promises.

.

I hope by the morning I will have grown back. I’ll escape with him, show him all my skin. Then I’ll go. I’ll go home.

- _Amsterdam_ , Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a monster that was supposed to be an innocent coffeeshop!au.
> 
> I'm on tumblr [here](http://paperkrane.tumblr.com/) and [here](http://andnowforyaya.tumblr.com/). Come play with me! :D
> 
> Thank you, if you made it all the way to the end, or if you didn't. 
> 
> Fun Fact: Common Grounds is based on a tasty coffeeshop called Ground Support in Soho, in New York City, that has very tasty coffee!
> 
> Fun Fact: I listened to [this playlist](http://8tracks.com/andnowforyaya/i-hope-by-the-morning) for days at a time while writing this fic.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for "I Hope By the Morning by andnowforyaya"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6166594) by [PeggyStarkk (LupusUlulans)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LupusUlulans/pseuds/PeggyStarkk)




End file.
